Côte d'Ivoire: BOAD invests 10 billion CFA francs in COFINA to finance SMEs

The West African Development Bank (BOAD) has granted a refinancing line of 10 billion CFA francs, or approximately 14.3 million dollars, to COFINA Côte d'Ivoire, as reported on September 28, 2026, by Agence Ecofin. This medium-term financing is intended to support investments by Ivorian small and medium-sized enterprises and industries.

The missing link in credit

The operation targets a well-known bottleneck in the Ivorian economy. According to the World Bank's Enterprise Survey cited by Agence Ecofin, 27.6% of small Ivorian businesses identify access to finance as their primary constraint, and nearly 70% fund their investments using their own resources rather than through banks. In other words, the growth of thousands of workshops, farms, and service-based SMEs currently depends on their own cash flow, not the banking system.

The funds are directed toward SME investment, businesses led by women, financial inclusion, and green projects. The precise breakdown between these priorities has not been disclosed.

COFINA, an Ivorian player in "mesofinance"

Founded in 2014 and led by Ivorian Jean-Luc Konan, COFINA was built on this intermediate segment, which is too large for microfinance and too small for traditional banks. As of the end of 2025, the institution reported more than 90,000 clients, a total balance sheet of 139 billion CFA francs, 76 billion CFA francs in loans, and 69 billion CFA francs in deposits, making it the second-largest decentralized financial system in the country behind Baobab.

This is not the first institutional support received by the group: the European Investment Bank granted it 10.5 billion CFA francs in 2023, also targeting SMEs in agricultural value chains, women entrepreneurs, and green investments.

What this says about African financing

The value of this type of operation is that it uses an African institution, the BOAD, to refinance an African player that lends in its own currency to local businesses. It is one of the few circuits where savings and long-term resources from the sub-region return to the productive sector, rather than flowing out as foreign debt denominated in foreign currencies.

The question of the final cost to the borrower remains: a refinancing line says nothing about the rates applied to SMEs at the end of the chain, nor the number of businesses actually served. It is these figures, if published, that will allow for the measurement of the real impact on employment.